A Piece Of Good News Amongst A Storm Of The Bad.

My sister-in-law's son-in-law, we call him Ashu, has made a full recovery from the dreaded Covid.  A CT scan had shown him with a count of 20, a cause for immense worry.  Ashu lives in N Delhi and works in the Medical Equipments industry.  He is an energetic young man with an entrepreneurial bent of mind.  He had set up his own business from a scratch and had received an award for entrepreneurship from the Times of India.  The business, unfortunately, died down in the aftermath of demonetisation and GST, and he was forced to take up a job once again.  Currently he is the sole breadwinner in the family and supporting his mother-in-law and father-in-law too.  And so there was a palpable gloom in the family that deepened as his scan revealed less than hopeful prognosis.

Ashu has shared with me his treatment regimen, which I feel compelled to share with everyone.  Of course I have no medical qualification to recommend it to others but am still sharing it in the hope that this may form a starting point when a Covid patient or a caregiver discusses a line of treatment with a qualified doctor.

His successful treatment is based on a regimen recommended by some doctors and shared on Facebook.  I am providing a link to one of these videos at the end of this post.

These doctors ask to mark the day of start of symptoms including fever as day one.  In most cases, the fever should go away on day 6th necessitating no further treatment.  However if the fever persists or worsens, they recommend a heavy dose of methylprednisolone - 40  mg twice a day for five days, an anticoagulant, such as Apixaban 5mg, to be taken once a day, and nebulisation with Formoterol Fumarate and Budesonide mixture TDS and SOS.

Initially Ashu was given steriod but in a very low dose of 4 and 2 mg.  When he went to another doctor who subscribed to the regimen mentioned above, he increased the dose to the level recommended in the videos.  It is now three days after Ashu went off the medication and he is feeling absolutely fit and fine.  He maintains that with all his problems in breathing, had he gone to a hospital to be put on oxygen, the result would not have been a happy one.  He also practised proning and steam inhalation to relieve the symptoms.

It is important to add that Ashu doesn't have any history of diabetes and hence this line of treatment did not present any complications for him.  However, as steroids are known to raise sugar levels, diabetics must mention the fact to their doctor and must abide by their advice.

Ashu also tells me that doctors normally use the tradename Medrol for the steroid and because of this the drug has disappeared and is available in the black market at 100 times the printed price!  Though the same drug from different companies and with different tradenames is available at the normal rate but doctors and pharmacists are failing to suitably advise the patients in the matter.  In case the drug is not available in the required strength, multiple tablets with lower strength can be taken to make up the dose.

I must emphasize that I have no medical qualifications and have narrated this case merely for information of my readers.  They must not follow this line of treatment without consulting a qualified doctor after disclosing all their existing ailments to him.  It can be fatal for diabetics to go for it without the recommendation and supervision of a doctor.

Here is the link to one of the videos that I had mentioned.

Yet Another Obituary!

 Yesterday, the day started out well and the pal of monotony was broken by messages from some old and dear friends. Two of them called too and we had longish voice chats that cheered me up and, hopefully, the other side too.  However as my wife and I were going to call it a day after dinner, the bolt from the blue came.  My cousin called and enquired if I had received the bad news.  When I replied in the negative, he broke the news of the death of a nephew, my elder sister's eldest son, at the hands of the dreaded virus.

It is the kind of news that makes one go numb both in the limbs and the mind. Everything is frozen to a standstill in that moment.  Then, gradually, a door opens in the mind letting in a swarm of memories, like furious bees, and the mind flails around, stung by them, till it drops down in sheer exhaustion.  The cycle repeats itself, mercifully in diminishing intensity and finally it all dies down and sheer stupor prevais.

An analogy arises in the mind.  I am at the head of a queue for check-out and someone far behind me loses his patience at my slowness in proceeding and jumps the queue.  It leaves me with the feeling that I used to get in my younger days when I had a recurrent nightmare which will leave me paralyzed and unable to breathe and just as I got to the verge of desperation, I would wake up perspiring with a jolt and a sharp breath. I despair at the curse of having to watch someone to go, when it should have been the other way round.

There was a long age gap between my elder sister and me.  My nephew, his pet name was Guddu, was born in my parents' home when I was in the tenth standard and about 13 years of age.  I vividly recall my brother-in-law visiting us and beaming with pleasure as he held Guddu.  Guddu had inherited the firmness and some of the strictness of his father and in him I saw an image of my brother-in-law.  Both my elder sister and the brother-in-law had passed away a few years ago.

Guddu was being attended upon in the hospital by his wonderful son, an MBBS, who insisted upon remaining in the hospital clad with an PPE all the time!  And though the exhaustion and utter lack of sleep were getting to him, he sounded happy at his dad's improvement only a couple of days ago.  And then everything fell apart.

Guddu is survived by his son, wife and two daughters.  My heart bleeds as I pray for them to be given the strength to bear this terrible loss.  Dear Guddu, may you find peace and love as you are united with your parents. Hari Om Tatsat.